


Garden

by DoctorTrekLock



Series: Resolution19 [22]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Character of Color, Contemporary Art, F/F, In which no men make an appearance, Magic, hashtag-feminism, lesbians in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 22:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18926395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorTrekLock/pseuds/DoctorTrekLock
Summary: To this day I'm still not sure what possessed me to make that promise. But it was Cassandra's 23rd birthday, her proper coming-of-age, and I'd been half in love with her since we'd both started at the Conclave. And I'd been so focused on not letting that slip that I'd forgotten to get her a Gift (which was completely inexcusable for a witch's 23rd).So when it had been my turn, and she'd looked at me with her deep brown, liquid eyes set in her gorgeous, russet brown skin, I had blurted the first thing that came to mind."My firstborn."And that had caused quite a stir, let me tell you.





	Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: You promised your firstborn to a witch, but you're terrible with guys  
> Source: <https://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/154270878812/gwydionmisha-only-1-a-catphistopheles>
> 
> Originally posted May 22, 2019 on [Tumblr](https://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/185075108627/garden-may-22-2019)

To this day I'm still not sure what possessed me to make that promise. But it was Cassandra's 23rd birthday, her proper coming-of-age, and I'd been half in love with her since we'd both started at the Conclave. And I'd been so focused on not letting that slip that I'd forgotten to get her a Gift (which was completely inexcusable for a witch's 23rd).

So when it had been my turn, and she'd looked at me with her deep brown, liquid eyes set in her gorgeous, russet brown skin, I had blurted the first thing that came to mind.

"My firstborn."

And that had caused quite a stir, let me tell you.

\--

Now, an off-hand, extravagant promise like that might not mean a lot to you, but it had been a Gift at Cassandra's Convocation, and that meant something.

A vow was a vow, and an oath was an oath, and a promise was a promise. And all three were binding to the depths of your soul.

To complicate matters further, I had no idea how I would _get_ a firstborn in the first place. I was awkward around women, completely uninterested in men, and the thought of any activities that might result in a child made me break out in a cold sweat. In short, I was completely and utterly screwed.

\--

My first instinct was to laugh it off and immediately reverse course, drowning my embarrassment in nachos and berating myself for my idiocy. As I mentioned, that wasn't really an option, see: eternally binding promises. And, like, the kind of promise that lingers, that becomes unfinished business and will keep you tethered to the mortal world long after you should have left. (This would be especially awkward in my case, since firstborn are _really_ hard to come by once you're incorporeal.)

Instead, I just froze. Cassandra's eyes widened in surprise and the utter stillness that had fallen at my pronouncement broke in a rush of noise.

"What?"

"Did she just?"

"I can't believe--"

Cassandra's eyes didn't leave mine and I stared back at her, unblinking, too panicked to think of anything.

"--never heard of such a thing--"

"--can't imagine--"

Cassandra blinked and looked toward the rest of those gathered. "Enough." Her quiet pronouncement settled the crowd. "Shiraz has given her Gift." Her dark eyes found mine again, contemplating me, and I felt like I was drowning in their depths. "And I have accepted it." I felt the suffocating weight of an unfulfilled oath settle around me.

Yep. So screwed.

\--

I sat there nervously bouncing my leg while anxiety twisted in my stomach, waiting for the last four people to give their Gifts. Theirs fell much more into the standard practice for Convocations: a book on magical theory from Madam Constance, three pale dewdrops plucked from the base of a mountain from Beatrice, a dozen tulip bulbs from Imelda, and her great-grandmother's pearl necklace and earring set from Cassandra's mom.

Once the last person in the circle has given their Gift, the Convocation is technically over. This signals the beginning of a party designed to appropriately celebrate the end of a witch's minority and the official completion of her education. My plans had been to retreat from the circle as quickly as possible and see how far I could get, re: nacho drowning. Even as the other witches moved closer to congratulate Cassandra (and probably to see about getting her take on the whole "firstborn" thing, knowing them), I could feel her watching me.

I immediately changed course from the buffet to Madam Constance. The Chinese woman didn't look surprised when I grabbed her elbow and pulled her a little further from the crowd. "Help," I hissed.

Madam Constance looked amused. "And what are you looking for help with?" she asked, raising a single eyebrow. "It seems rather simple from here. You offered your firstborn as a Gift to Cassandra and she accepted. You now owe her your firstborn."

I stared at her hopelessly. "Help," I repeated, quieter.

This got me a sigh. "Shiraz," she said firmly. "Your Convocation was last month, so I am no longer your teacher. But," she added at my dismayed expression, "I will remind you of this, which you should have remembered from Madam Alvarez's seminar on bindings," she said pointedly.

I wracked my brain for the lecture in question and could only bring up the hazy memory of Veronica inadvertently swearing herself to be Octavia's servant for the day and Cassandra's chiming laughter at the spectacle.

Luckily, Madam Constance continued. "Oath magic cannot be negated or diverted. It can, however, be interpreted. You offered your firstborn." Here her amused eyebrow made an appearance again. "You were fortunate in not specifying that it had to be a firstborn _child_. Any creation you pour your heart, soul, sweat, blood, and tears into may count."

It was the best news I had heard since... actually, since ever. It was the best news I had ever heard.

"Heart, soul, sweat, blood, tears," I repeated, nodded. "Got it. Thank you very much, Madam Constance!" Before the woman could stop me, I gave her a quick hug before darting away. I heard a resigned sigh from behind me.

"Heart, soul, sweat, blood, tears," I chanted to myself. "Heart, soul, sweat, blood, tears."

\--

I did manage to get away that night without talking to Cassandra, which I thought was a minor miracle at the time. It just meant that she had to track me down the next day.

I was brainstorming ideas for a firstborn when there was a knock at my door. "Shiraz?" It was Cassandra.

The Conclave had a sprawling campus, and even though its primary purpose was as a school for magically talented women, it also served as a community center and meeting place. Hence why I still had a room there, even after my Convocation.

My blood ran cold when I heard her voice. A stronger witch than I would have simply opened the door. Then again, a stronger witch would have probably just 'fessed up to Cassandra before all of this started. Or just remembered to get her a Gift.

As it was, I simply pretended I wasn't home.

After a moment, she knocked again. "Shiraz?" She didn't sound a lot like her normal, confident self. She was nervous, and that made her tentative.

The realization had me on my feet, and before I could second guess myself, I had opened the door. "Hi, Cassandra."

She looked beautiful. Well, she always looked beautiful, but this morning, with the weight of my vow on my shoulders, I figured it was probably too late to pretend she didn't steal my breath every time I saw her. Her hair was frizzing a little out of her neat braids, and she looked tired, but her skin still glowed in the sunshine.

"Shiraz," she breathed. "Hi."

We stared at each other awkwardly for a moment before I remembered that I should have some manners. "Come in?" I asked, moving out of her way. Cassandra nodded and walked past me into the room.

She took a breath. "I--"

I interrupted her. "Before you say anything, I want you to know I have this under control."

"You do?" She looked skeptical.

"Yes," I said firmly. "I talked to Madam Constance, and I think I know how to get out of this."

"Get out of it?" she asked. "I actually wanted to--"

"It'll be fine. I've got a couple ideas, and we'll get this thing sorted right away," I assured her.

Cassandra didn't look reassured. "Shiraz, I think we need to talk about--"

"No!" I blurted. "I don't-- We don't need to talk about anything. It's fine."

She huffed sharply in frustration. "Shiraz! We need to talk about your Gift!" I was going to interrupt her again, but she threw up a hand to stop me. "Don't. Please." I kept my mouth shut. She took a breath. "Shiraz, why did you give me such a Gift?"

Her eyes were beseeching, and I caught a glimpse of something that might have been hope. I opened my mouth before I knew what I was going to say, but nothing came out. For a moment, I almost told her the truth. I almost told her about how much I thought about her every day. About the way sunbeams danced in her hair and gave her a golden halo that left me awestruck. About the sweaty palms and nervous butterflies I got when I thought about kissing her. About how many Gifts I had considered and discarded until I was left with nothing but my heart to offer.

I almost told her. But what I said instead was, "It was an accident. I panicked."

Her gaze shuttered and dropped. "Right. An accident," she echoed.

"Like the mayor's poodle," I clarified.

"Like the poodle," she repeated hollowly. "Of course."

I wasn't sure what else to say.

"I'm going to fix this," I told her again, desperately hoping that might repair what I was beginning to realize I had broken.

She looked at me for a moment, and I'm not sure what she was thinking about, but then she nodded and left.

In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I had just talked to her the night before.

\--

There were certain rules of magic that were universal. Oaths and vows were one of the big ones, as I had found out. The structure and form of spells was another constant. But each woman who walked into the Conclave had her own talent, a single flavor that characterized her magic.

Imelda, for example, was particularly good at destructive spells. She could probably tear down a building if she really needed to. Most of the time, though, that manifested in small ways when her emotions got too strong. When she got annoyed at homework, lights flickered. When she got angry, neatly alphabetized books would randomly rearrange themselves. Things like that. (She wasn't really allowed in the library anymore unless Veronica was there to help keep her calm.)

Yeah, Veronica was a bit of an empath. Her thing was emotions. Which was great when she was upbeat; it really helped us all focus. But when she and her boyfriend had a nasty breakup over Skype... Well, it wasn't pretty.

Lucinda did electricity and tech; Cassandra was basically one with plants; Madam Constance had this cool thing where she could see and manipulate other people's spells; and I-- Well.

My talent wasn't quite like everyone else's. I had yet to find a way to distill it down to a single idea. If I had to sum it up, it would be _accidents_. When I was seven, I exploded my uncle's can of soda all over him from across the room because he had mentioned a little too loudly that a woman needs to know her place. I was thirteen when Madam Ramirez had taken us on a field trip to a fundraiser. The mayor had made a small joke in his speech; I was the only one who gave a large laugh. It was slightly awkward; I was embarrassed; I accidentally vanished the mayor's pocket poodle. I was twenty-three when I panicked at a friend's Convocation and offered her my firstborn as a Gift.

To be fair, the last one might not have actually been magic.

\--

After Cassandra left, I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between turning our conversation over in my head, trying to figure out exactly what I had missed, and desperately attempting to forget the conversation entirely by focusing on possible firstborns.

It was around this time, as I was dourly meditating on my terrible accident talent, that I remembered Cassandra's.

Plants. Of course.

I then pulled a piece of slightly crinkled paper out of my recycling bin (one side of which contained the half-finished checklist of thank you cards from my own Convocation, but the reverse of which was blank), fished a pen out of my sock drawer, and set to planning the most elaborate plant-based Gift I could hope to give Cassandra.

I'd like to say that it was all smooth sailing from there.

\--

The next time I saw Cassandra, I was at the Conclave's library. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but my ideas were severely limited by what spells I knew. I had hoped that Madam Florence might have been able to help, but she just scribbled down a list of introductory books on a variety of spell forms and impatiently shooed me away.

I was staring blankly at the two dozen unopened books stacked around me at the library table when someone slid into the seat across from me. It was Cassandra, of course.

I hadn't seen her since the awkward conversation in my room the week before, and I'd been kind of hoping I would be able to avoid her a little longer. I still wasn't sure what I had said to put that look in her eyes, but I'd had grand schemes of skirting around her for months until my Gift was done. Then, of course, my oath would be fulfilled, my Gift delivered, and everything would be able to go back to normal.

Well obviously that wasn't going to happen now.

"Cass--"

"What's your plan?" she interrupted. She looked tired, but otherwise neat and put-together as usual. (In comparison, my messy ponytail and worn Conclave sweatshirt felt particularly shabby.)

"What?" I asked reflexively.

"Last week. You said you knew how to deal with the whole...Gift thing," she gestured vaguely with one hand. "So. What's your plan?"

I looked at my table of books. It looked particularly dismal in light of her sharp question. I was suddenly much less confident than I had been before her arrival (and I hadn't really been that confident to begin with).

"Um," I stalled. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "You said you knew how to fix it. If it was an _accident_ ," her voice faltered briefly on the last word, "then I won't let you do it on your own." She lifted her chin to look me square in the eye. "It's not fair to you." Then she folded her hands on the table in front of her, as if waiting for a counterargument from me.

I didn't have one to give her.

"Uh, okay," I told her. "That might actually be best. I was probably going to have to get help from someone anyway," I admitted. "The spell structure is kind of beyond me." I sighed a little at the intimidating stacks surrounding me.

"Okay," she repeated, obviously not expecting me to agree so quickly. "So what's your plan?"

And then I told her about the Garden.

\--

Cassandra's natural affinity for plants made them a natural choice for any Gift I could give her. But after offering her my firstborn, dewdrops and tulip bulbs weren't exactly going to cut it.

Outside the window of my room at the Conclave, there was a grassy courtyard, complete with tree. I'd been staring at it, wishing for some kind of inspiration that would bring me from "plants" to an actual, viable idea. The tree was maple, but it reminded me of Newton anyway, who had watched an apple fall and calculated gravity.

And that led me back to thoughts of falling apples and plants and falling in general and--OH

I had to fish a couple more pieces of paper out of my recycling to scribble down all the details that flooded my mind after that.

I had a vision of a falling garden, flowers and leaves eternally suspended above the floor in a constant array of motion and life. In my mind's eye, it was a brilliant riot of reds, yellows, pinks, and purples set against a vivid background of greens. There was a side hall with a vaulted roof that was rarely used, which would be perfect for this. Though maybe there was a way to make it portable? So Cassandra could take it with her when she left the Conclave...

And I scribbled and dreamed and pushed all thoughts of reality out of my mind. Because I couldn't master my talent or remember lectures about bindings, so how was I going to pull this bit of magic off?

\--

Cassandra and I spent six months working on the Garden.

She had a stronger grounding in theory and a much better idea of what kinds of plants we should use than I did, but she also didn't have any better idea of what spells we would actually need to use to create the Garden.

I was lucky that she loved the idea as soon as I told her about it. I had only just come up with it, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do if she hated the very idea of a falling garden.

So we spent six months together digging through theory books and then spell books. Madam Florence gave us a couple pointers after I told her what we were working on, which helped direct us a little better. Neither of us had classes anymore, so we spent nearly all our time on the Garden.

I mean, we took breaks, of course, but otherwise we worked on the Garden. Even during meals we'd talk about the Garden. I'd tell Cassandra about a spell I'd just read about that probably wouldn't work, but it's kind of nifty anyway. And she'd just watch me with a warm smile and something fond in her eyes. Then it would be her turn to tell me about a new addition to the communal greenhouse and how it would be perfect for the Garden. And her eyes would light up and her hands would illustrate the shapes of the flowers, and I would lose my breath watching her.

(Cassandra and I did miss the occasional party or movie night, which was fine, though that did mean we missed some gossip. By all accounts, Imelda and Octavia had a _huge_ falling out after one movie, where apparently Imelda stormed out after the screaming match. I'd heard she ended up at an art museum of some sort. Considering her talent, I'd hate to see what that place looked like when she was done.)

Every so often, we'd stop early for the day to help someone pack or throw them a farewell party. Slowly but surely, our classmates were finding work away from the Conclave and leaving. Veronica moved to Paris. Lucinda ended up in Silicon Valley. Kiara went back to Mumbai. I didn't ask Cassandra when she would be moving. She didn't ask me either.

And then, abruptly, it was done.

\--

I had spent so much time with Cassandra focused on finishing the project, of creating the Garden, that I had completely forgotten Madam Constance's words.

It was only after the final spell was cast and the growing tension surrounding us had snapped, sending flowers skyward, that I remembered. Cassandra was looking around the room in awe, spinning in wide circles to see the entire thing. Any other time, I would have been held spellbound, completely captivated by the sheer joy on her face. As it was, I stared blankly at the far wall in horror, a cold sinking feeling washing over me as I realized that I hadn't been paying attention. The heavy weight of my unfulfilled promise hung on me, and I almost stumbled.

My thoughts flickered wildly. What had she said? "Blood" was one of the things, right? I looked over my hands desperately. Had any of the flowers cut me? The leaves? What else had she said? "Sweat", maybe? There hadn't been that much physical activity, and Cassandra had done most of the actual plant work that had been required. What about--

"Hey," Cassandra said softly, grabbing my hands gently and holding them. "What's wrong?"

"I--" Her brown eyes were full of concern, so I looked over her head at the slowly tumbling flowers. I wasn't sure how to tell her. How did I explain that all the work we had done had been wasted? That it had slipped my mind, and as a result I was back to the beginning and completely out of ideas?

"It's yours," I told her helplessly, dropping my gaze back to hers. "It's your Gift, Cassandra."

Her hands were warm on mine, and one slipped out to brush my cheek and gently cup the side of my face. "No, Shiraz," she said. "It's ours."

I felt lighter than I had in months, the touch of her hand sending butterflies wild in my stomach. It took me a moment to realize that the giddy weightlessness wasn't just from feeling her skin on mine. The oppressive mantle of the Gift had been lifted, my promise fulfilled. A Gift offered, accepted, and delivered. "Oh," I breathed.

That's when Cassandra kissed me.

So I guess it all worked out.

\--

Looking back at all of this from the benefit of a decade's distance, I'm pretty sure what Madam Constance meant was that any child required sacrifice, dedication, and commitment, whether the child was human or not. The "heart, soul, sweat, blood, and tears" she had mentioned were more of a metaphor than a literal checklist.

(It took me a couple years to figure that part out.)

  
  


A/N: This work was partially inspired by the following piece of art:

["Falling Garden"](https://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/184099877002/parasoli-falling-garden-by-gerda-steiner-and) by Gerda Steiner & Jorg Lenzlinger


End file.
